Mercedes Petronas AMG team: the all new and improved Nico

Congratulations to Nico for his first win of the season! We know you've been waiting for this. By Jerrica Leong

Congratulations to Nico for his first win of the season! We know you've been waiting for this. By Jerrica Leong

Lewis Hamilton was sore from the beating he received when team mate Nico Rosberg took pole in qualifying, it did not help him that his start had involved a few wheel spins before he shot forward. That had allowed Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to drive pass him and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas to challenge him for third.

Hamilton had not been happy throughout the race weekend as first he was finding it impossible to get close enough to championship rival Vettel to pull off a spectacular overtaking move for second place. Thankfully for him the team decided to move on “Plan B” which meant a three-stopper. Without the need to save tyres, Hamilton had set a series of quick laps to close down the gap between him and Vettel.

Unluckily for him, Hamilton’s first pit stop had not gone as smoothly as expected. The engineers had had problems switching out his rear left tyre which saw him stationary longer than was usual. Ferrari had taken advantage of the situation and had Vettel “box” earlier than expected so Hamilton had been forced to remain behind the scarlet car.

Plan B had worked perfectly despite the crowd’s scepticism, Lewis Hamilton’s short stint with the hard tyres had seen him lap a 1.28,201, he set a string of fastest lap and chased down both Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari and the Williams of Valterri Bottas and Felipe Massa. His third pit stop had seen him come back out on track ahead of Sebastian Vettel to come home second.

Nico Rosberg in contrast had had a relatively uneventful race. He had started one Pole and remained in the lead most of the race. While the team had had to compromise his strategy for Hamilton’s three-stopper, Rosberg had pulled a 22 second gap ahead of Hamilton after his third stop.

Rosberg controlled the race from the start, the German lapped everybody from Daniel Ricciardo in seventh place. He had a worrying when he saw his team mate ahead of him but he need not have worried much as he was chasing down Hamilton who was on the harder tyres.

Nico Rosberg is elated with this win, he admits that “it is still early in the season but it is good to close the points’ gap to Lewis”. The German is now looking forward to his home race in Monaco, maybe we will see him shaking hands with Prince Albert on the top step of the podium then. We’re all looking forward to Nico and Lewis’s performance!